


the black bird wants to rip me limb from limb

by avosettas



Series: human concepts [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Hospital, Cancer, Child Death, Corpse Desecration, Gen, Mild Gore, Morbid Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:55:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24192448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avosettas/pseuds/avosettas
Summary: “Better not get too close to your prey. Besides, I’d like to have the remains that you don’t take, dear.”
Series: human concepts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1752607
Kudos: 12
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	the black bird wants to rip me limb from limb

**Author's Note:**

> wow! this is fucked up! 
> 
> anyway, this is MAYBE related to my au where romania and norway are vampires? i haven't decided yet, but i'll probably stick all three of these into a series. 
> 
> denmark (matthias) is a valravn, which you can read more about [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valravn). belgium (anri) is a matagot, which you can read more about [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matagot)!

Matthias walks down the hallway quietly - he does not want to wake any of the ward’s children up. It isn’t that late, but many of the younger ones will be asleep already. His footsteps are punctuated occasionally by the soft sounds of the television in one of the rooms, and the creaking of his cart as he turns corners. 

He has one delivery left to make, and then he can take his break. 

Peter Kirkland is twelve, according to the labels on the clipboard Matthias was given, and terminal. Melanoma. He’s already been on the ward for about four months. 

He was never expected to make it longer than six, but the doctors have high hopes. He’s improved a lot since his last surgery.

Matthias knows otherwise, though. Nothing medical. But he knows Peter is nearly dead. Maybe another month. 

He knocks softly before opening the door. Peter is awake, but his eyes are half-lidded and he looks tired. “Hey kiddo,” Matthias greets. “Gotta do vitals.” 

“‘S late,” he slurs as Matthias attaches the blood pressure cuff to his right arm. 

“Says you,” Matthias replies teasingly as he squeezes the bulb to tighten the cuff, watching the manometer closely. “You should turn the television off when I leave.”

Peter watches blearily as Matthias notes his blood pressure, and holds his arm out docilely to have the cuff removed. He’s silent as Matthias places the finger cuff on his opposite hand and notes the measures on that, too. 

“G’night, kid. Don’t let the morning nurse wake you too early,” Matthias says, closing the door. 

The smile drops from his face as he wheels his cart back the way he came, studying Peter’s vitals all the while. Acting like he cares is exhausting. 

The kid’s blood pressure is lower than normal, as is his oxygen saturation. His pulse and temperature are more or less normal. 

A little longer, then. 

The rot of death hadn’t been strong enough for Matthias to see the miasma, anyway. 

~

He sees Peter for vitals the next day, and the day after, and the day after that, too. On the fourth day, a coworker pulls him aside, just before he leaves. 

“That Kirkland kid really likes you,” says Anri, voice low. She’s eyeing his breakfast all the while - a small cup of shrimp ramen. He hands her the first forkful; in return, she presents him with a dirtied, golden coin. 

“Merci,” she purrs. Then, sinister, “When will he die?” 

“I think soon,” Matthias replies. “But it’s hard to tell. I can’t tell until he’s very close to death.” 

“He’s been improving, since _you_ started seeing him every night,” Anri says slyly. Her eyes flash, suddenly cat-like - when Matthias blinks they’re normal again. “Better not get too close to your prey. Besides, I’d like to have the remains that you don’t take, dear.” 

~

So Matthias rearranges the schedule a bit, and doesn’t see Peter for a week. Until he’s in the middle of his shift, long past time for vitals, when Yao comes up to him, looking annoyed. “Go see Kirkland,” he orders, and Matthias can’t _refuse_ , considering Yao is technically his boss. 

Peter is sniffling, but he immediately brightens up. His vitals had fluctuated overall during the time Matthias had ignored him. 

“I hear you aren’t letting Yao close to you,” Matthias says tiredly as he begins taking the child’s blood pressure. Something dark fogs up the room, just around Peter’s shoulder. 

Where the mole was, originally, that allowed them to diagnose his melanoma. 

“I don’t like him,” Peter pouts. “You’re my favorite.” 

Matthias doesn’t speak as he finishes taking Peter’s blood pressure, and then his other vitals. Finally, he says quietly, “I am not here because I _like_ you, Peter. You are going to die soon.” 

Peter looks terrified, but Matthias can’t find it in him to feel bad. He’s terminal, anyway, and Matthias needs this. 

He only has another year left, after all, until he turns into a raven again. Possibly for good this time. 

He leans closer to Peter again, feels his wings, black and terrible, spread behind him and create a breeze in the small room. “I am going to eat your heart when that happens, and I will not mourn you.” 

Softly - too gently, for one of his kind - Matthias presses his hand into Peter’s forehead and pushes the child backwards into the bed. He’ll think it was a nightmare. 

~

“Peter’s family has come in to say goodbye today. They think he’ll be gone by tonight,” Anri informs him coldly as he dresses for the freezing day in the locker room. She’s mad that she didn’t get the first mouthfuls of his breakfast, but she was late today. First come, first serve. 

“...Maybe I should stay on,” Matthias sighs, letting his scarf flop against his back. “Anri, do you think I’m a horrible person?” 

“You aren’t a person,” she replies simply, dropping her lanyard around her neck. “And also, may I remind you that you _are_ asking a matagot for advice. I’m just here for the fresh meat.” Unspoken between them as she leaves is _and you’re here for the heart of a child to keep you alive_. 

~

Peter dies just before Matthias makes his rounds. It’s fate, maybe. The miasma of death and the smell of rot known only to Matthias still hangs heavy around his corpse. He volunteers to take it to the morgue. 

Logically, he should be glad. Finally, he will be human. Or human-shaped, at least, no longer in danger of remaining a raven for the rest of his immortal life. 

Last time, it lasted nearly four hundred years, before he shifted forms again. This time, he won’t shift again.

A black feather falls from his blond hair. 

When he reaches the morgue he doesn’t remove the cloth that Yao placed over Peter’s body. Despite everything - his horrible last conversation with the boy, his life as a valravn - it feels sacreligious to remove it.

Matthias is not a surgeon. He is an RN, through and through. But before he’s an RN, he’s a valravn, before even _that_ he was just a dumb kid on the battlefield in Wessex who went and got himself cursed. His hand shifts, just slightly, and he uses the talons that formed there to cut open a square in the cloth. A scalpel would be useless - messier, even.

He has searched for a child for years, but somehow every child he came into contact with, working in this hospital has either lived, or he hasn’t been able to do what he’s meant to. He’s too soft.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. If he doesn’t do this, he won’t be alive for any sort of life worth living. He slices open Peter’s unmoving chest and rips out his heart. It is small in his hand, silent and unbeating. 

Then, he stumbles back into the wall and sobs. He can almost hear Anri calling him pathetic. 

Valravns were not meant to be pathetic. They killed soldiers, ate kings, led children astray and ate their hearts to become something close to what Matthias already was! 

Matthias was not a typical valravn. He was just a kid cursed to be turned into a raven by some Saxon witch who he still didn’t know the name of, and then he went and ate the flesh of a king. 

And now to live his life he needed this heart, because long ago a witch had stolen his. 

Crying quietly, with emotions he hadn’t felt in years, decades, centuries, Matthias swallows Peter’s heart.


End file.
